


Delirium

by exoticdunce



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-07
Packaged: 2018-02-03 20:01:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1755805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exoticdunce/pseuds/exoticdunce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray looks forward to receiving the government-mandated cure that prevents the delirium of love and leads to a safe, predictable, and happy life, until ninety-five days before his eighteenth birthday and his treatment, when he falls in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prolouge

It has been sixty-four years since the president and the Consortium identified love as a disease, and forty-three since the scientists perfected the cure. Everyone else in my family has had the procedure already. My older brother, Caleb, has been disease free for five years now. He’s been safe from love for so long; he says he can’t even remember its symptoms. I’m scheduled to have my procedure on September 15th. In exactly ninety-five days. The day of my eighteenth birthday.

Many people are afraid of the procedure. Some people even resist. But I’m not afraid. I can’t wait. I would have done it tomorrow, if I could, but you have to be at least eighteen, sometimes a little older, before the scientists will cure you. Otherwise the procedure won’t work correctly; People end up with brain damage, partial paralysis, blindness, or worse.

I don’t like to think that I’m still walking around with the disease running through my blood. Sometimes, I swear I can feel it writhing in my veins like something spoiled, like sour milk. It makes me feel dirty. It reminds me of children throwing tantrums. It reminds me of resistance, of diseased girls dragging their nails on the pavement, tearing out their hair, their mouths dripping spit.

And of course it reminds me of my father.

After the procedure I will be happy and safe forever. That’s what everybody says, the scientists and my brother and my aunt. I will have the procedure and then I’ll be paired with someone the evaluators will choose for me. In a few years, we’ll get married. Recently I’ve started having dreams about my wedding. They’re always vague, but when I turn to see who’s holding my hand, my vision blurs, like a camera going out of focus. Their hands are cool and dry, and my heart is beating steadily in my chest.

Safe, and free from pain.

Still, I worry. They say that in the old days, love drove people to madness. That’s bad enough. The Book of Shhh also tells stories of those who died because of love lost, or love never gained, which terrifies me the most.

The deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don’t.


	2. Chapter 1

We must be constantly on guard against the Disease; the health of our nation, our people, our families, and our minds depends on constant vigilance.  
\- “Basic Health Measures” The Safety, Health, and Happiness Handbook, 12th edition  
\---------  
The smell of oranges has always reminded me of funerals. On the morning of my evaluation it is the smell that wakes me up; I look at the clock on the bedside table. It’s six a.m.  
The light is gray, the sunlight just strengthening along the walls of the bedroom I share with both of my cousin Marcia’s children. Monty, the younger child, is crouched on his twin bed, already dressed, watching me. He has a whole orange in one hand. He is trying to gnaw on it, like an apple, with his little teeth. My stomach twists, and I have to close my eyes again to keep from remembering the hot, scratchy suit I was forced to wear when my father died; to keep from remembering the murmur of voices, a large, rough hand passing me orange after orange, section by section, and when I was left with only a pile of peelings heaped on my lap I began to suck on those, the bitter taste of the pith helping to keep the tears away.  
I opened my eyes and Monty leaned forward with an outstretched hand.  
“Monty, you aren’t supposed to eat the peel.” I push off the covers and sit on the edge of my bed. I peeled the orange for Monty and handed it back to him, in which he took it back as if it were an orb and he were afraid of shattering its beauty.  
“You know, the others would be way nicer to you if you spoke once in a while.” I spoke softly.  
He doesn’t respond, but I didn’t expect him to.  
My aunt Carol’s never heard a word from him the whole six years and eight months he’s been here. Carol thinks there something wrong with his brain, but so far the doctors haven’t found anything. “He’s as dumb as a damn rock.” Carol said matter-of-factly just the other day, while watching Monty turn a block over in his hands.  
I stand up and move towards the window. Monty watched me with big brown eyes.  
It will be hot today, I can tell. It’s already hot in the bathroom and when I crack the window to sweep out the smell of oranges, the air outside feels thick and heavy. I suck in deeply, inhaling the clean smell of Austin and what I make out as damp wood.  
I hear a car engine start up and it startles me.   
“Nervous ‘bout your eval?” Carol asks standing in the door way with her hands folded.  
“No,” I lie.  
She smiles, just barely, a brief, flitting thing. “Don’t worry, Ray. You will be fine. Take your shower and then I’ll help you with your outfit. We can review your answers on the way up there.”  
“Gotcha.” My aunt continues to stare and I squirm before shutting the door on her.  
The evaluation is the last step, so I can be paired with someone else. In the coming months, the evaluators will send me a list of four or five approved matches. One of them will become my partner after I graduate college (assuming that I pass all my boards. Anyone who doesn’t pass gets paired and married right out of high school.).  
“Is Ray getting married today?” Chris, Monty’s half-brother, asks my aunt. His voice always reminded me of bees droning flatly in the heat.  
“Don’t be stupid. Ray can’t marry until he’s cured.” I hear all this from outside the door and clench my jaw.  
I showered quickly and Carol helped me get dressed even quicker. After, she flees downstairs to fix food for Monty and Chris.  
From downstairs, there is a clatter of dishes. My aunt sighs loudly and checks her watch.   
“We got less than an hour until we leave.” She complains. “Get movin’.”  
\------  
Carol insists on walking me down to the labs, which, like all the government offices, are lumped together along the wharves: a string of bright white buildings, glistening like teeth over the slurping mouth of the ocean. She used to walk me to school every day.  
“Remember,” She is saying for the thousandth time, “they want to know about your personality, yes, but the more generalized your answers are, the better chance you have of being considered for variety of positions.”   
“Got it,” I say as a bus barrels past us.  
I look way too dolled up for today. I have never been interested in looking very nice or most popular trends. My best friend, Gavin, thinks I’m crazy, but of course he would. He’s absolutely gorgeous—even when he just gets out of bed; he looks as if he styled it that way.   
I’m not ugly, but I’m not pretty either. Everything is in-between. I have brown eyes. I’m rather thin and the most definite thing about me is I’m rather short.   
Carol has been talking for a while now.  
“Are you even listening to me, Ray Narvaez Junior?” Carol puts a hand on my shoulder and spins me in her direction.  
“Blue,” I parrot at her. “Blue is my favorite color. Or green.” Black is too morbid; red will scare them; pink is juvenile; orange is freakish.  
“You’re making a face,” my aunt tells me.  
“My favorite subjects are math and his—“ I’m cut off as I hear my name from behind us.  
“Ray!”  
I turn around and Gavin is climbing out of his adopted parents’ car. His hair is perfect per usual and he looks very nice.   
“Wait on me, you nob.”  
Gavin’s parents’ car is as sleek black as a panther. Hardly anyone has cars anymore and even fewer actually drive them. Oil is strictly rationed and incredibly expensive.  
“Hi, Carol.” Gavin deadpans as he catches up to us.  
Gavin and I abandon Carol and head down for the labs together. Gavin is nearly six-two. When I walk next to him, I have to do this half skip every other step to keep up with him and I wind up feeling like a duck bobbing up and down in the water.  
I’d be a complete wreck without him.  
We get to talking.  
“Carol takes this pretty serious, huh?” he says.  
“It is serious, Gav.” I reply.  
“Yeah, I know, I’ve read The Book of Shhh as much as anyone.” Gavin pushes his sunglasses up and bats eyelashes at me.  
“You don’t believe it then?” I lower my voice to a whisper.  
“If they really wanted us to be happy, they’d let us pick ourselves.”  
“Take that back, Gavin.”  
Gavin holds up his hands. “Alright. I take it back.”  
“And besides, they do give us a choice.” I say.  
“A limited one.”   
“Every choice is limited. That’s life.”  
“Okay, okay. Don’t get so defensive.”  
\-----  
The entering process goes by quick. Before I know it, they’re calling my name and I’m through the doors.  
“Ray Narvaez Junior?” A nurse says in the bright, clipped voice that all nurses seem to share. We go back and they give me one of those shitty hospital gowns that are open in the back and show off your ass. “Feel free to take as much time as you need, but the longer you take, the less time your evaluators have.” And with that, she leaves.  
I get changed in no time and sip on some water. Before I even process it, I’m out the room and in an even brighter lab. My mouth feels dry and my mind goes blank.  
“Do you have your forms?” A woman asks with friendly voice. I feel my stomach clench.  
I feel like I might piss myself, right here and now. I try to imagine what Gavin would say. “Yes.” I handed over the forms and stood back from the table.  
“So, Ray Tiddle?” she asks, looking at the form.  
“No ma’am. My aunt’s last name is Tiddle. I’m Ray Narvaez Jr.”  
“Alright, tell us a little bit about yourself?”   
I feel like I can’t breathe. Like my throat is dry. And suddenly, I’m thinking of my father. My father remained uncured, despite three attempts at procedures. The disease claimed him, nipped at his sides, and turned him eyes hollow. Or so they tell me. I was six at the time, so it’s all blurry for me.  
“Would you like some water?”  
I nod quickly and drink a third of the glass in seconds.  
“Okay now, answer these questions honestly.”  
I nod.  
“What are some favorite books of yours?”  
“Love, War, and Interference by Christopher Malley.” I answer quickly. “Border, by Philippa Harolde.” It’s no use trying to keep the images away: They are rising now, a flood. That one word keeps scripting itself on my brain, as though it is being seared there. Pain. They wanted to make my father submit to a fourth procedure. They were coming for him on the night he died, coming to bring him to the labs. But instead he had fled into the dark, winged his way into the air. Instead he had woken me with those words—I love you. Remember. They cannot take it.—which the wind seemed to carry back to me long after he had vanished, repeated on the dry trees, on the leaves coughing and whispering in the cold gray dawn. “And Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare.”   
The evaluators nod, make notes. Romeo and Juliet is required reading in every freshman-year health class.   
“And why is that?”   
It’s frightening : That’s what I’m supposed to say. It’s a cautionary tale, a warning about the dangers of the old world, before the cure. But my throat seems to have grown swollen and tender. There is no room to squeeze the words out; they are stuck there like the burrs that cling to our clothing when we jog through the farms. And in that moment it’s like I can hear the low growl of the ocean, can hear its distant, insistent murmur, can imagine its weight closing around my mother, water as heavy as stone.   
And what comes out is: “It’s beautiful.”   
Instantly all four faces jerk up to look at me, like puppets connected to the same string. “Beautiful?” I realize I’ve made a big, big mistake.   
The evaluator with the glasses leans forward. “That’s an interesting word to use. Very interesting.”   
“Perhaps youfind suffering beautiful? Perhaps you enjoy violence?”   
“No. No, that’s not it.” I’m trying to think straight, but my head is full of the ocean’s wordless roaring. It is growing louder and louder by the second. And now, faintly, it’s as though I can hear screaming as well—like my mother’s scream is reaching me from across the span of a decade. “I just mean … there’s something so sad about it… .” I’m struggling, floundering, feeling like I’m drowning now, in the white light and the roaring. Sacrifice. I want to say something about sacrifice, but the word doesn’t come.   
“Let’s move on.” She is all business now. “Tell us something simple. Like your favorite color, for example.”   
Part of my brain—the rational, educated part, the logical me part—screams, Blue! Say blue! But this other, older thing inside of me is riding across the waves of sound, surging up with the rising noise. “Gray,” I blurt out.   
“Gray?” Evaluator Four splutters back.   
My heart is spiraling down to my stomach. I know I’ve done it, I’m tanking, can practically see my numbers flipping backward. But it’s too late. I’m finished—it’s the roaring in my ears, growing louder and louder, a stampede that makes thinking impossible. I quickly stammer out an explanation.   
“What the hell … ?”   
At the same time, Glasses says, “Sit down, Helen. I’ll go see what’s wrong.”   
But at that second the blue door bursts open and a streaming blur of cows— actual, real, live, sweating, mooing cows—come thundering into the lab.   
Definitely a stampede, I think, and for one weird, detached second feel proud of myself for correctly identifying the noise. Then I realize I’m being charged by a bunch of very heavy, very frightened herd animals, and am about two seconds from getting stomped into the ground.   
Instantly I launch myself into the corner and wedge myself behind the surgical table, where I’m completely protected from the panicked mass of animals. I poke my head out just a little so I can still see what’s going on. The evaluators are hopping up onto the table now, as walls of brown and speckled cow flanks fold around them. Evaluator One is screaming at the top of her lungs, and Glasses is yelling, “Calm down, calm down!” even though he’s grabbing onto her like she’s a life raft and he’s in danger of sinking.   
Some of the cows have wigs hanging crazily from their heads, and others are half-swaddled in gowns identical to the one I’m wearing. For a second I’m sure I’m dreaming. Maybe this whole day has been a dream, and I’ll wake up to discover that I’m still at home, in bed, on the morning of my evaluation. But then I notice the writing on the cows’ flanks: NOT CURE. DEATH. The words are written in sloppy ink, just above the neatly branded numbers that identify these cows destined for the slaughterhouse.   
I have to admit the whole thing is kind of hilarious.  
That’s when I hear it. Somehow, above the snorting and stomping and yelling, I hear the laugh above me—low and short and musical, like someone sounding out a few notes on a piano.   
The observation deck. A boy is standing on the observation deck, watching the chaos below. And he’s laughing.   
As soon as I look up, his eyes click onto my face. The breath whooshes out of my body and everything freezes for a second, as though I’m looking at him through my camera lens, zoomed in all the way, the world pausing for that tiny span of time between the opening and closing of the shutter.   
His hair is dark brown, almost black, like freshly poured coffee, and he has brown subtle eyes. The moment I see him I know that he’s one of the people responsible for this. I know that he must live in the Wilds; I know he’s an Invalid. Fear clamps down on my stomach, and I open my mouth to shout something—I’m not sure what, exactly—but at precisely that second he gives a minute shake of his head, and suddenly I can’t make a sound. Then he does the absolutely, positively unthinkable. He winks at me.   
At last the alarm goes off. It’s so loud I have to cover my ears with my hands. I look down to see whether the evaluators have seen him, but they’re still doing their little tabletop dance, and when I look up again, he’s gone.


End file.
